Dr Crippen could win posthumous pardon

Dr Hawley Crippen, one of the most notorious murderers in British history,
could win a posthumous pardon after new evidence suggested he did not murder
his wife.

By Chris Irvine

3:16PM BST 07 Jun 2009

The case of Dr Crippen could be referred to the Court of Appeal after the Criminal Cases Review Commission received an application relating to the homeopath.

Should it be referred and subseqently overturned, it would mean a posthumous pardon 99 years after he was hanged and the longest miscarriage of justice in British history.

Crippen, an American doctor, was accused of murdering his wife Cora when she disappeared from their London home after a party.

Police conducted a search of the house and the remains of a human body were discovered buried under the brick floor of the basement.

After attempting to flee the country with his mistress, Dr Crippen was arrested, subsequently found guilty and hanged in 1910.

The centre of the case is DNA evidence that suggests the body discovered in the basement was not that of Cora Crippen's but a man's.

According to prosecutors at his Old Bailey trial in 1910, Dr Crippen poisoned his wife before dismembering her. Police found a corpse with no head, bones or genitals.

Dr Crippen had always protested his innocence and claimed his wife had returned to the USA.

Acting for Patrick Crippen, a relative of the doctor, lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano, who was one of Saddam Hussein's defence team, told The Observer newspaper:: "We have been told categorically that the case is being referred and we are now just waiting for the paperwork. The body was a man and so the pardon is deserved."

Patrick Crippen said: "It is time to clear the family name. A lot of Crippens in the US are embarrassed to talk about Hawley."

A spokesman for the Commission said they had received an application relating to Crippen but categorically denied it had been referred.

"There can be significant obstacles to making referrals to the Court of Appeal in cases where the subject of an application has been dead for a long time," the spokesman said. "One such obstacle is that there has to be someone that the Court might approve as a person to take the necessary procedural steps in court."